


Master Reset

by annaregina



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AI prompt, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Engineer Rey, F/M, Hux loves his cat, Kylo goes to force choke her then realises she's fit, No Pregnancy, No redemption but you know he will get there, Soft Kisses, Soft rey and kylo, computer programmer rey, reylo prompts, they get jiggy with it but not on screen sorry yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24077206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaregina/pseuds/annaregina
Summary: "Kylo's only friend is Rey, an AI that runs the FO's ship. After Snoke wipes and removes her personality drive to punish him, Kylo,  determined to get her back, hires the best programmer in the galaxy: the Scavenger, and realizes she programmed REY with her own personality."
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 24
Kudos: 182
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	Master Reset

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Sarah for encouraging me to still write this even though I was struggling with knowing other people were using the prompt too. I hope you like my offering of more cake lmao. As usual, completely not proof read because I live life on the edge.

“What do you mean, it’s been wiped?”

Hux shrugged, unsure of why this was such a big deal or why Kylo Ren is glaring at him across the meeting table like he’d just murdered his pets. “Snoke’s orders, Ren. It needed an update, apparently.”

“Well did Snoke think to ask me? I was having her - it - store various items for me. Documents and things.”

One ginger eyebrow shot up. “Does Snoke usually ask you?”

“That’s not the _point_.”

The other generals and officers around the table looked dumbstruck but they had the sense to keep quiet, to not draw the man’s wrath to them. No one breathed.

“It’s all gone?” Kylo breathed.

Hux checked the screen again and grimaced privately. Kylo wasn’t the only one who had lost documents with the AI wipe - most of his photos of Millicent had been stored in REY’s database. But you didn’t see him throwing a temper tantrum in the monthly meeting did you? No.

“I am leaving now, General Hux,” Kylo said, his chest heaving. “Continue this meeting without me.”

* * *

Gone.

Gone.

 _Gone_.

It was so stupid, he knew it was stupid. And embarrassing, sad, depressing – his dirty secret. But Rey had seen him through the last year, maybe even more, of life with the First Order and now the logs were all gone. Every conversation, every message, every reminder she set for him to go for a walk, get some sleep, take deep breaths.

He was alone again.

The second he made it back to his rooms, he broke down. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and he slammed his fists into the table, the floor, the mirror, the shards slicing up his gloves. The dark leather stained even darker with his blood as it trickled from the self inflicted cuts.

Kylo took a deep breath. He liked to think it was a calming breath, but it wasn’t.

“Rey, are you there?”

His heart broke all over again. She wasn’t.

“Hello. I am REY, artificial intelligence. How can I help?” the voice said from the hidden speakers.

It wasn’t _his_ Rey. _His_ Rey always made a joke about her intelligence being real, thank you very much. _His_ Rey had learned which accent preference he liked best. _His_ Rey had listened for hours when he spoke, cried, poured out his heart and soul.

He clenched his fists and hissed at the pain, allowing it to ground him. It’s the Sith way, he knew, but it helped momentarily and he eased the glove from his bloody fingers and began to pick the sharps of broken mirror from his skin, wincing every time.

“I am REY, artificial intelligence. How can I help?” the cool voice says again, emotionless.

“Rey,” he gasped, looking up at his expression in the now splintered mirror. Only one eye is still visible, the rest of his face fractured into so many pieces. “Is it possible to restore settings?”

“ _Restore_ not understood, there are no previous settings to restore. Which settings would you like to change?”

Which ones? All of them.

“Voice. Set voice to preference 10.”

“Affirmative. Voice preference changed for your rooms.”

It sounded like her. That was a start at least, albeit a very small one. He could do this, he could really do this. Snoke wouldn’t need to know, he could simply change the settings back in his rooms and guard his mind better.

“Rey?” he croaked, running his uninjured hand through his hair and turning away from the mirror to stalk back into his bedroom.

“Here.”

“Who last accessed your hardware?”

 _His_ Rey would’ve made a joke about letting no man access her hardware. This Rey only paused for a second to check the logs and then spoke.

“Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“Did he leave a reason?” Kylo asked, his voice edged with hatred. “For his _tampering_.”

“He did. Would you like to read it?”

He couldn’t sit still, so he paced the room instead. “Yes, Rey, I would.”

He was surprised when Snoke’s voice started to play, not her voice: “I assume if you’re hearing this, boy, then you know what I’ve done. This is for your failure. Come to me.”

Kylo’s answering growl as Snoke’s voice fades was enough to keep Rey, even freshly reprogrammed as she was, silent. He snatched up his lightsaber and stalked out of his room, the door hissing shut ominously behind him.

* * *

“You heard my message then?” Snoke sneered from his throne, barely turning to acknowledge his apprentice’s arrival.

“I did,” Kylo snapped, his breath ragged. “Why?”

Snoke glanced down his nose at the man in front of him, clearly sensing Kylo was close to some sort of precipice.

“You failed me. I see your mind, remember, I see your failure and your unnatural attachment to that _thing_. It’s artificial, Kylo, it has no emotion, no feelings. It cannot care for you. It cannot love you.”

“LIAR!” Kylo screamed, igniting his ruby blade.

Snoke looked uperturbed. “Are you so lost in your own mind that you believe lines of code were your _friend_? You have none. You are nothing more than a lonely boy, my forged weapon. You deserve nothing more.”

He saw red. In moments, he’d crossed the room, climbed the steps to Snoke’s throne and levelled his blade at his mentor’s throat, his chest rising and falling heavily as he tried and failed to control himself. The loss was too much to bear.

Snoke just chuckled menacingly, unbothered by the pulsing plasma blade just centimetres from his neck. “You won’t do it. You’re a coward, Kylo Ren. You’re nothing. And REY was nothing too. This will do you good, boy, maybe now you’ll get over it and-“

He never got to finish his sentence. Kylo’s lightsaber pierced his skin and his poisonous words were instantly cut off. Snoke wasn’t a large man and neither was his neck: his head toppled from his shoulders easily as Kylo jerked his hands, the blade shuddering with power.

Snoke’s mistake, his final one, had been to send his guards out to speak to Kylo alone. There had been no one to stop him, no one to curb his temper, but as his mentor’s lifeless body slumped and slid from the throne with a small nudge, Kylo tasted blood on his tongue and realised just what he’d done. And just how relieved he was that he’d done it.

He stormed from the throne room, the doors blasted open with a wave of his power and he glanced around at the red-robed guards with a burning expression.

“The Supreme Leader is dead. Long live the Supreme Leader,” he growled.

They were wise enough to not protest seeing as his blade was still glowing fiery red in his hand.

“ _Long live the Supreme Leader_ ,” they echoed, their staffs hitting the ground in a salute, expressions hidden behind their masks.

“Dispose of the body,” Kylo ordered, glee running like a drug through his veins as he realised he could do whatever he liked – at long last he had no master. This place was his to command and he knew what he needed to do. “Inform Hux and tell him not to disturb me until I find him. Congratulate him on his promotion.”

The guards slammed their staffs into the ground once more before filing away to do as he had told them.

Kylo practically smirked as he rolled his shoulders and extinguished his blade. Time to find the AI server hub.

* * *

He’d been here several times before to check in on Rey, but he’d never had to meddle with any settings himself – she’d been more than capable of repairing herself, and she also had a small team of dedicated computer engineers and coders to do what she couldn’t.

Finding the sleek holopad user interface at the very front of the server room, he keyed in his details to gain access and took a deep breath: time to find the head engineer and see what he could do to help.

“I am REY, artificial intelligence. How can I help?” the voice began, using the voice he preferred know it knew who was in the room.

“Rey, who is the main programmer here on the ship?”

“REY main programmer is employee #10451, known as Scavenger.”

What kind of ridiculous name was that? If you were going to pick a new name, at least make it sensible, like his.

“Where is Scavenger now?” he demanded. “I need to speak to him immediately.”

“Scavenger is on level 12. Would you like me to page them?”

“Yes, please, page them, tell them to meet me by my rooms,” Kylo snapped, pissy with impatience. He needed his Rey back now, how dare this programmer be busy elsewhere? “On Supreme Leader’s orders. There is to be no delay.”

“Noted, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo wasn’t surprised that Rey already knew of the… change in circumstances. She was always quick on the uptake like that. He took a steadying breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. This was fine, he was going to get her back – properly – and Snoke would never keep them apart again.

Part of him knew that the way he was thinking about her was ridiculous. Snoke was right about one thing; she was just code, programmed and taught to make him happy and follow his orders. She couldn’t care about him.

And yet… As Kylo tried to restrain himself in the lift up to his rooms, he remembered several incidents, several times Rey had done things that were definitely not programmed in, or even _possible_ for a computer to learn because he’d enquired with several different AI specialists on the ship.

Like the times she’d popped up without prompting when he’d been crying and, rather than enquiring what the noise was like she did sometimes when he was destroying things, she’d spoken softly (could an AI voice even speak softly?) until he’d quietened down. When he’d looked at the code later the lines dealing with noise prompts had been edited and were hidden behind a password he hadn’t been able to crack.

Like the times she’d cracked jokes at his expense and no one else had ever noticed Rey being capable of that. While it was possible they were lying, he’d once again failed to find any evidence that it was programmed into her to begin with or that it was learned behaviour.

All in all, it was just plain _weird _.__

By the time he made it to his rooms, he was pissed off and confused and still grieving, and when the slim girl dressed in grey and sporting some ridiculous triple bun hairstyle stepped in front of him, he nearly racked up a second kill in one day.

“Out of my _way_ ,” he growled, staying his hand but baring his teeth at her. He wouldn’t hesitate – she was a tiny scrap of a thing, it woudn’t take much to get her to move.

“Hi, I was told to meet the Supreme Leader here? You haven’t seen Supreme Leader Snoke have you? He sent for Scavenger and – and that’s me,” she said, biting her lip and remaining impressively unbothered by the murderous look on his face.

Kylo blinked, distracted momentarily. “You? You’re the programmer? You’re Scavenger?” He’d expected a man but a voice, suspiciously like his mother’s, tutted at him when he admitted that to himself. “You are meeting the Supreme Leader here, yes, yes, that’s me. I’m Supreme Leader now.”

The girl blinked, her pretty mouth forming an ‘o’. “I see.”

Pretty? When had his brain decided she was pretty? Kylo looked at her again, recognising the grey as the engineering officers’ uniform now, and blinked once more. She was pretty. Extraordinarily pretty. And she had programmed Rey?

“What… what was it you needed, sir?” she said, taking a deep breath.

* * *

He didn’t recognise her. Which, Rey realised once she fought past the crushing disappointment, made perfect sense and, realistically, was for the best. It’s hardly the best way to introduce yourself to your new head boss: hi, I’m Rey, I programmed the AI and I’ve been checking the logs constantly ever since you first spoke to it. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I’ve violated protocol several time and, as such, have heard you crying, know all the secrets you told the AI when you thought it wasn’t being recorded and I think I’m in love with you.

She wouldn’t leave the room alive.

Kylo cracked his door open and swept inside. She followed, assuming that was what he wanted but not feeling too sure where she stood with him. Hidden behind the code, she felt close to him. The man himself was very different.

“Snoke issued a system wide factory reset of the Rey AI some time in the last twenty four hours. I need you to undo it.”

Rey blinked. Frankly, she was still reeling from the news that Snoke was dead and Kylo had taken his place. She was proud of him though, she knew how much Snoke had twisted his thoughts and how much Kylo hated it. She had hours of chat logs saved to her personal holopad that nobody would ever see.

“I… I can’t just undo it,” she admitted quietly. “It was a complete memory wipe. That version is gone – he wouldn’t allow me to back it up.”

Kylo made a noise that was close enough to a whimper that Rey allowed herself to look at him directly, her eyes swimming with sympathy. If only she could just tell him.

“I… I see,” he stammered. “What… what do I do? I had… personal effects that she was storing for me. Are they gone for good? The… personality feature, especially, was… important to me – to, well, not just me, but to _people_ , you know?”

Rey was still stunned that he called the AI ‘she’ not ‘it’ like everyone else did. Was it possible that the Supreme Leader cared a little more about her than she’d imagined?

“I can…” She stopped and cleared her throat again, trying not to let it get to her head. “I can help you restore as much of the personality as I can.”

“Of course, much of it was learned, correct?” Kylo said, forcing himself to get it together. “The jokes, and such like? I feel they would be missed.”

Rey swallowed, her throat suddenly very dry. He was as good as admitting he liked _her_ and he didn’t even know it.

“Uh, no, sir. That stuff wasn’t learned exactly,” Rey whispered, her hands shaking slightly as she faced the man she knew better than anyone – even herself.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t _learned_ , AIs don’t just… have running jokes with people, that’s not standard protocol!” Kylo snapped, searching her face for an explanation.

Rey wrung her hands. “Rey?” she called out.

“I am REY, artificial intelligence. How can I help?”

The words rang through his rooms, the accent a perfect copy of Scavenger’s and his hazel eyes widened as the penny finally dropped.

“You’re right, Kylo,” Rey choked out, “It’s not standard protocol for AIs to have a personality like that. But I coded it, it’s… it’s my personality.”

Kylo surged forwards, his face flashing with anger and he lifted his hand as if to grip her throat, his fingers curling towards her jaw and then… then he stopped when she cried out weakly. His hand never made contact with her skin, no force flowing around her windpipe.

Rey licked her lips and lifted her hands to block his – she knew him. She knew that he reacted like this when threatened or cornered. But she wasn’t a threat. Slowly, she slotted her fingers through his and tugged them away, releasing a shaky breath.

“Scavenger isn’t my name,” she whispered, wishing she could read his expression more – she hadn’t seen him much after all, only spoken to him, only read back his conversations. “Do you know my real name, Kylo?”

“Rey.”

* * *

There was no way this girl in front of him was… was the person he’d been talking to for so long. Programming it, writing the code, it didn’t mean she knew him. His friend hadn’t been Rey the programmer but Rey the AI. It still wasn’t the same.

“You know _nothing_ about me. Just because you wrote the code doesn’t mean you are _her_ ,” he snarled, but even to his ears it was feeble.

Rey – the human Rey – blinked and he could see something shining in her eyes. Was it tears?

“I know everything I need to know about you. Oh, Kylo, I’m sorry,” she croaked and now he _knew_ it was tears because they were running down her cheeks, dripping from her pert chin. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, but… It was me. Or as good as me. I read the logs. I saw one accidentally during maintenance and I kept sneaking back to read more. You seemed so _real_ and I thought maybe I could have a friend, even if it was just like this. I know that’s what you wanted too. A friend.”

He made another little noise in the back of his throat, his other hand, the one not holding hers, coming up to cup her cheek, to wipe away the tears that ran over her freckles.

“I thought you would be suspicious when I changed things, but you weren’t so I just continued,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry. It was private, I should never have-“

“You’ve read it all? Everything I ever said to… to Rey? To _you_?”

She nodded miserably. “I’m so sorry. Punish me. Fire me. Do whatever, it was awful of me.”

His head was spinning faster than it ever had before, faster even than when he’d killed Snoke, faster than it had when he’d heard the news from Hux.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, his voice hoarse. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and something in his chest twisted. “You read every conversation I ever had with the AI? And you, what, responded? Changed the programme?”

“I did. No one else’s AI would do that stuff, it was only for you. It was _all_ for you.”

“The crying, she responded to me crying.” He should have felt embarrassed to admit it, but she already knew, what else did he have to lose?

“I was doing a check up on the programmes and I tapped in, just to see, and saw that it’d found a new audio prompt. I just wanted to see what was up, I never meant to-”

“It was you,” Kylo interrupted her, stepping closer and pulling her against him.

“Yes,” she said, because there was no way out of this now. “Yes, it was me.”

“It’s always been you,” Kylo echoed, but his voice was softer now, almost gentle. “Rey.”

“You – you aren’t angry?”

“I am the _opposite_ of angry,” he crooned, bending over slightly to close the height gap between them, bringing her beautiful _beautiful_ face closer to his. “She was, as sad as it was, my best friend. To find out it was a real person all along, and to find out the person looks like _this_?”

There was an edge to his voice now and he could see the blush starting to rise along her cheekbones. He grinned lopsidedly.

“I’m proud of you,” Rey whispered, “For killing Snoke. You didn’t deserve any of it. You’re not who he says you are, Kylo. You don’t need to be lonely any more, I-“

He interrupted her again to crash his lips against hers, feeling her melt against him, her fingers reaching up to tangle in his hair, tugging insistently.

This is real. This is _happening_.

“Rey,” he breathed, pulling away for half a second and glancing towards the ceiling.

“Yes?” she grins, the cheeky expression lighting up her entire face. He much prefers it to her tears.

“The other one,” he muttered gruffly.

“I am REY, artificial-“

“Yes, yes, we get it,” he snapped, “Clear my schedule for the rest of the day. Make sure no one interrupts me. Redirect all enquiries to General Hux.”

“Understood, Supreme Leader.”

He looked back down at Rey who was smoothing her hand down his chest, still grinning. “That will be all. Dismissed.”

“Wow, you’re so bossy. You were never that bossy with me before,” she pouted.

“Oh I can show you bossy,” he growled but his grin matched hers.

She was giggling as he picked her up in his arms and carried her through to the other room.

* * *

Rey opened her eyes sleepily and rolled over to grab his holopad from the bedside shelf. “Shut this stupid thing up, Kylo.”

“You’re the engineer,” he grumbled, pulling her back to him with the pad, hitting the ‘ignore call’ button. “Bloody Hux.” Hux wasn’t on his mind for long as he dumped the holopad off the side of the bed and rolled her onto her back, straddling her and kissing her lazily

“Is that the one with the cute cat?” Rey asked, tracing patterns into his skin as he continued kissing her neck and shoulders.

“He’s probably ringing about the pictures,” Kylo muttered, “He thought he was so subtle but we all knew that’s how he used up so much holonet storage space.”

Rey giggled and the sound shot through him, drawing another smile from him. He’d smiled more in the last 12 hours than in his entire life up until now.

“It _is_ a very cute cat,” Rey protested, sitting up and kissing his nose sweetly before trying to untangle the mess he’d made of her hair.

“Where are you going?” Kylo groaned, flopping back onto the mattress as he watched her, his eyes running over her body greedily.

“Work,” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “I have an AI to reprogram, remember?”

Kylo growled. “You are not putting your personality back into it.”

“Why ever not? I thought you liked it!” Rey huffed, looking around on the floor for her binder and shirt.

He slipped out of bed and wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her bare shoulder. “I want you all to myself.”

She turned around in his arms and smiled softly, tipping her head to the side, her hair shifting like a tawny curtain around her neck. “You have me, I promise.”

He believed her.


End file.
